


the wing!au

by fromheretocolorado



Category: American Idiot - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Gore, Emetophobia, M/M, Multi, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-07-21 02:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16150376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromheretocolorado/pseuds/fromheretocolorado
Summary: this is an old old fic but ! i wanted it uploaded





	the wing!au

Usually Fridays are the good days.

Its the end of the week, so Johnny and Will get their paychecks, Jimmy’s done with classes until Monday afternoon, and they’re free to spend a glorious 60 hours together. Sometimes they go dancing at the club down the street, grinding together dirty in the quasi-darkness where its too crowded to tell that there’s three of them instead of two. Other times Jimmy will come home with a bone to pick with everyone, so they’ll go up to the roof and ply him with alcohol and cigarettes until he starts telling them about the stars, or the constellations, or sometimes (if they play their cards right) what’s wrong. If Will or Johnny are tired, they’ll sit at home and watch Scott Pilgrim or Indiana Jones with Jimmy snuggling himself into their wings.

Except this week, when Johnny gets home from his shift, Will is sitting on the couch with Jimmy shaking in his arms, wrapped in a blanket. Johnny drops his backpack and pretty much runs across the room because he’s seen Jimmy’s face look that scared only twice before, and he has exactly zero desire to relieve that past. He looks to Will for explanation, but Will just unwraps the blanket, wordless, so Johnny can see Jimmy’s back. Jimmy’s shoulder blades are angry red and swollen, and when Johnny presses a palm against them he can tell that Jimmy’s burning up.

Wings.

They had known that Jimmy was going to get his wings at some point – Johnny’s had come in a year and a half ago, when the three of them were still something nebulous and not quite relationship-like, and afterward they’d made plans for when Jimmy got his. But that doesn’t mean that a sharp edge of fear doesn’t flash through Johnny, because there’s still no way they can afford a hospital, and he knows from experience that this is going to hurt.

The rest of the night is spent with Jimmy nestled between them while they play Mario Cart. When they finally go to bed he’s in the middle for once, instead of Will. Saturday is. Odd, because it doesn’t really hurt yet, he just feels off, like his skin is stretched too tight (which, he guesses, it is), and mostly they’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

On Sunday they wake up to Jimmy sobbing in pain, his shirt soaked through with blood. He whimpers when they try to pull it off over his head so Will finds scissors and cuts it apart, peeling pack the sides to reveal bone spurs pushing through Jimmy’s skin, waxy membranes stretched tight over them. Johnny bites his lip and glances at Will, because they both know that Jimmy should really be in a hospital for this. But instead Johnny encourages Jimmy into sit up and Will runs to grab a protein shake and pain meds and a cool washcloth.

Jimmy shudders when Will runs the cloth over his back, even though Will’s careful to not let it catch on the raw edges of skin. He obediently sucks on the straw Johnny guides into his mouth, and when he doesn’t throw it back up immediately, Johnny shakes out three pills and presses them into his hand.

Jimmy sleeps fitfully for the rest of the day, waking up at irregular intervals when the pain of growth or discomfort of stretching membrane pulling at his flesh becomes enough to cut through the haze of medication. By Monday night the forelimb is fully grown out, stretching nearly six feet from Jimmy’s shoulders. Johnny comes back from his shift at the store with more medicine and food, and together he and Will manage to lull Jimmy to sleep.

Tuesday is hard. The phalanges are stretching the membrane out and out, but Jimmy can’t feel the stretching because the nerves haven’t started growing yet and the membrane itself has stopped tugging at his shoulders. The disconnect sends him into a tailspin and it takes Johnny and Will two hours to calm him down and convince him to stop trying to pick at the skin around the base of the bones. Wednesday is a bit better, because the blood vessels and nerves and muscles start winding their way around the bones, ready to layer themselves underneath skin. Jimmy can feel it, but it doesn’t hurt as much as before, so he spends the day eating as much as he can and trying to quiz himself on the vocab his professor sent, so he doesn’t fall too far behind.

Will and Johnny are glad of Wednesday’s respite, because the next day is another bad one. The membrane thickens and hundreds upon hundred of layers of cells form, veins and arteries weaving together with nerves in and out of the tender skin. To Jimmy it feels like they’re constantly sparking, over and over and over, and its a sensory overload, bad enough that he can’t even focus enough to recite constellations and calm himself down.

Friday morning dawns through a haze of fog, the colors of morning beautifully softened around the edges. Will and Johnny barely notice, though, because they’re helping pull the last strips of membrane off of Jimmy’s wings and wiping away the sticky residue it leaves behind. The sun is streaming across the floor by the time they sit back, but the sight before them is worth the entire week of worry.

Jimmy’s wings are velvety-soft and batlike, a wine red shot through with streaks of silver and fading to white at the bottom. He flaps them once, tentatively, and a gust of wind whooshes through the room. His face breaks into a grin, wide and happy, and to Johnny and Will it looks better than the fucking sunrise.

Yeah. Fridays are the good days.


End file.
